Mustangs hold camp

The Malta Mustangs held their first home event of the 2018 last week as the team hosted the 2018 Mustang Football Camp on Monday, July 23, through Thursday, July 26.

The event which featured everything from drills, scrimmages to helmet safety was held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. for athletes from sixth to twelfth grade.

We had 32 high schools and 53 or 53 overall," Coach Jim Benn said. "Those are really good numbers for a camp this time a year and it kind of shows you how the kids of Malta feel about football."

According to Coach Benn, having both middle school and high school athletes learning and developing side by side is beneficial.

"We have got some junior high kids sprinkled in so they can get (more experience)," Coach Benn said. "I think for those kids it has got to be a blast being around the older kids and getting that feeling. So that they can kind of see what is going on and they can polish up something before they start their Middle School football season too."

Though the event was the first home event for the Mustangs, this is far from the first action that the team has seen in 2018.

"We have been working all summer and it has been a good group," Coach Benn said. "There had been a good turnout again in the summer."

The team had twenty-two high school athletes at a camp in Dillon earlier this summer.

"I think we are getting ready to go," Coach Benn said. "We lift four days a week in the evenings as a team. There have been right around twenty athletes doing that and two nights a week we go and work on our passing game stuff."

As for the camp week, Coach Benn and his coaching staff have been working on the fundamentals and more.

"We have just been working on the basics of what we do," Coach Benn said. "We want to really work on fundamental stance, blocking, tackling. Just the basics to kind of get refreshed before the season gets started."

In spite of the number of athletes at camp, the coaches were able to teach on many different levels.

"We do individual sessions and we do some group work where we install some of our run game, and we have done some team stuff as well," Coach Benn said.

According to Coach Benn, the Mustangs have changed a few things in their gameplan.

"We are going to look a little bit different than we did last year because obviously we graduated some people," Coach Benn said. "Having a different quarterback, we have to kind of adjust a little bit."

With last year's starting quarterback Trace Simonson graduating from Whitewater High last spring, the team will go from a running quarterback to a passing quarterback in sophomore Kooper Oxarart.

"Kooper is looking kind of like the guy right now," Coach Benn said. "He had a great camp. He is solid. He is a sophomore but he carries himself a lot older, so I think he is ready to go."

With his second season as the Mustangs' head coach coming up, Coach Benn believes that the team has retained a lot from last season.

"We are way ahead of where we were last year," Coach Benn said. "That's been a pleasant surprise because you don't know how much information is being retained going in and out."